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Squeeze Insurance Profiteers, Not Medicare
At a critical moment in the tense health care debate -- when the U.S. House and Senate are scrambling to forge compromise reform plans that might be passed before the Congress embarks upon its traditional August recess -- President Obama is retooling his health-care reform message.
Instead of the bold rhetoric of last year's campaign, or even of last month's press conferences, the president is now pitching reform as more of a consumer-protection gambit.
"No one is talking about some government takeover of health care," Obama explained to the crowd at his latest town hall meeting in North Carolina on Wednesday.
Rather, the president argued that his reform vision would make insurance companies more responsible.
"We have a system today that works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn't always work well for you," Obama told 2,000 people gathered in a Raleigh high school gymnasium. "What we need, and what we will have when we pass these reforms, are health insurance consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and insurance companies are held accountable."
Obama wants to do this by:
* requiring insurers to set annual caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses,
* requiring insurers to fully cover routine tests to help prevent illness,
* requiring insurers to renew any policy as long as the policyholder paid the premium in full,
* barring insurers from refusing coverage because of pre-existing conditions, scaling back insurance for people who fall very ill, charging more for services based on gender and/or placing limits on coverage,
* barring insurers from denying children family coverage through age 26.
These are pretty good ideas.
Unfortunately, they tinker around the issue of affordability -- the great challenge for tens of millions of Americans who have access to health care but lack the resources to pay for the coverage they need.
For those who would seek to control costs in a responsible manner, the dangerous trend in the health-care debate at this point is toward schemes that would see the federal government providing money to low-income families so that they can buy care from high-income insurance companies.
That's nothing more than a giveaway to insurance companies. And it will not control costs.
In fact, if the Medicare "reform" experience of recent years is an indicator, the likelihood is that costs will skyrocket as insurers hike prices to pay for advertising and maintain excessive profits. And how much does anyone want to bet that the advertising will highlight the "services" they are required to provide by Obama's consumer protections?
Whenever anyone talks about controlling health-care costs, the important thing to remember is that private, for-profit insurers drive costs up in order to make money.
That's what's maddening about the focus of so much of the congressional negotiation that is currently going on.
As Obama's message illustrates, some attention is being paid to the problem of insurance companies that collect money from healthy people and then refuse to care for sick people.
That's good.
But scant attention is being paid to the problem of insurance companies that charge Americans -- be they well or ill -- too much.
Instead, in order to draw support from conservative "Blue Dogs" and corporatist "New Democrats," congressional leaders are talking about putting the screws to Medicare -- a public program that is popular and that actually delivers care to tens of millions of Americans.
Congressional officials tell the Associated Press that Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus, D-Montana, has reportedly forged a tentative agreement with wavering Democrats and supposedly moderate Republicans in the Senate to cut "squeeze an additional $35 billion out of Medicare over the next decade and larger sums in the years beyond."
"Under the plan," AP is reporting, "an independent commission would be empowered to recommend changes in Medicare annually, to take effect automatically unless Congress enacted an alternative... The commission would be required to recommend $35 billion in savings over a decade from Medicare."
When used by Washington insiders to describe changes in how a safety-net program, the word "savings" usually translates as "cuts."
So, as of today, health care "reform" is shaping up as scheme to impose consumer protections on insurers while squeezing Medicare with cost controls that will be implemented not by Congress but by an "independent commission."
Honest reform must include consumer protections. But that's just a starting step.
The question remains: What will be done to make coverage affordable?
Here's a notion: Instead of setting up an independent commission to squeeze Medicaid and Medicare, how about an independent commission to squeeze insurance company profits?
Here's an even better notion: Instead of trying to make insurance companies do the right thing, why not set establish a single-payer program that takes as its mandate the coverage of all Americans in a system that controls costs by operating on a not-for-profit model?
After all, that's what a wise legislator said when he was asked about controlling costs while delivering health care to all Americans.
Here's what he said.
"I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what [single-payer advocates are] talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see."
The legislator's name was Barack Obama.
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22 Comments so far
Show AllTo the President and all our legislators I say. "Gentlepersons have you no shame. . ." it is less than civilized to not have Single Payor in this country.
Money over morals is a shameful statement for the politicians to make. Yet that is what these criminals think as they take care of their cliques.
It gets harder each day, to have a nice day, with villans on the rampage in Washington.
These are the Terrorist to fear.
"SAY A PRAYOR FOR SINGLE PAYOR.
He could care shit about your kids,he wants to put two hundred thousand more robo cops,,trained by the esteemed brainwashing private army organization known as putrid water unleashed on our streets,way to go joe.Cops And I have been fucking with each other for years( in fact I was at a concert in Hartford conn.the new arena a few months ago when five of Hartford finest beat me with their clubs while I had my hands handcuffed behind my back, yelling to anyone that may be observing, stop trying to resist , stop trying to resist, imagine a sixty two year old senior having five cops beating him with their clubs , I had to start laughing it was so three stooges, the cops yelling stop trying to resist , while everyone could see both my arms attached to the steel that the cop had in his hand.. This was done because I had the audacity to ask why I had to move from a seat that I paid one hundred twenty five dollars for. How did that Jimmy Cliff song go “I’d rather be a free man in my grave, than living like a puppet or a slave” The reason I mentioned this was because ,the older cops were human they could laugh, give you a break, if you shoe laces weren’t tied or something like that .Today every cop looks the same bald head, no citizen respect, confrontational from the get go, if you murmur something under your lips, okay lets go your under arrest , WHY, impeding an officer doing his duty. they move you to a corner to talk, if you don’t want to talk, under arrest , being un -cooperative . If a cop pulls you by the arm, and you pull away, assaulting a police officer. And every asshole politician is scared shit to fuck with the police union , so the police create this gravy train of details . you want to look in a manhole you need two cops , to direct traffic. You want to legalize drugs, every union in the country talks about the threat to public safety, they don ’t want to give up the easy bust, loose cash for themselves or their organization. God forbid they have to subdue a retarded person, a guys mother calls the police because her son is having hallucinations the police arrive they see this guy with a machete, DROP THE WEEPON , DROP THE WEEPON, LIKE A MENTALLY ILL PERSON IS GOING TO COMPREHEND THE SITUATION, BANG BANG HE’S DEAD. THE OFFICERS LIFE WAS THREATENED. COULDN’T YOU SHOOT HIS LEGS OUT YOU HAVE TO GO FOR THE HEART , WHAT HERO’S
Some years back a mentally disturbed man, not a threat to anyone other than possibly himself, was taken to the mental health unit at a hospital near Harrisburg, PA. He was so little of a threat that no one was watching him in the waiting room, and he chose to leave the hospital and walk home. When his absence was discovered the police were called. They went to his home, without a warrant, and without any medical personnel who might have been able to assist. They barged into his home, guns drawn, ready to "subdue" this dangerous man. He had no idea who they were, lacking full mental capabilities, and instinctively grabbed the first "weapons" he could find to defend himself, a couple pots and pans from the kitchen stove. The two police officers, so afraid for their lives after barging into the man's home with weapons drawn, murdered the man in cold blood. I can understand their fear. Who wants to be hit over the head with a cooking pot? They could have retreated and waited for medical personnel backup, but their lives were threatened, as I mentioned, so they shot the man to death. It was determined, by a thorough investigation of course, to be a "good shoot". The officers remain on duty, ready to intervene in the next medical emergency, ready to serve us and protect us from the next harmless character minding his own business inside his own home.
Medicare is the gateway to socialism. How can the economy recover without corporate profits?
Use your head.
Use yours, fool.
The current system in the states has to pay a bunch of profitsucking parasites - known as health insurance companies - that have a negative impact on the ability of yank corporations to compete globally. The price of your goods - the few left that you make - are higher than the rest of the worlds goods because you're getting robbed by not having 'socialized' health care.
If you haven't noticed, the spectre of international communism is gone. There are no commies under your freaking bed.
There is a spectre of debt and deficits. You cannot continue to borrow your way to prosperity, if you don't fix your economy and raise taxes the rest of the world will stop buying your nation's bonds. When - not if - that happens you will experience the hyperinflation that Argentina experienced in the late 80s, that Zimbabwe is experiencing now, that Germany experienced in the 1930s.
"There are no commies under your freaking bed."
This is true, but there are TERRORISTS lurking on every corner now. The media tells us so. The politicians reassure us of this.
Yes, I'm sure the new thinking is that if we allow everyone in America to have access to health care, decreasing the number of bankruptcies and deaths every year, then the terrorists will have won.
As one of my stupid 'friends' said, 'You can print all the money you want as long as you have the guns to back it up.'
He is gone now. 'The good they die young'
I'm on your side Saturnalia and about five times as tough as you. Where is your sense of humor?
Too tired of this debate, it's gone on a bit too long. Didn't think to recognise a name. The best solution is never talked about, sorry.
It's time for us to cast out the death merchants, the health insurance companies.
These death merchants turn their backs, isolate and abandon the sick and dying among us. And for what ultimate purpose, to increase wages for CEOs and profits for shareholders. This is psychopathic behavior that is dangerous to us all and must be eliminated from our society.
We moved from the big city to a rural setting. The spouse needing periodic urinalysis we went to local hospital for outpatient testing. The first question asked was "is this cash or insurance?" If cash, the price for a UA was $27. If insurance the price was $280. In looking for doctor who did a procedure we were considering in this area, again we asked the price. Again, we were asked is this cash or insurance? The cash price was $2000. The insurance price was $5000. The nurse we talked to was cautious in saying insurance companies were extremely slow to pay, if they did and possibly might deny the claim.
My thoughts on this health care reform is if the health insurance companies, big pharma, the AMA, AARP is for it, my BS detector suggests it is not a deal for Americans.
The insurance companies are quick to pay up to Congress to lobby and bribe them but not pay their actual customers where it counts. The insurance companies are inherently profit driven that seriously limiting them to supplemental status is what's sorely needed. Excellent thought especially on the last sentence.
Last year I needed a follow-up appointment, several weeks after undergoing major surgery (no insurance). Frankly, since I was having problems related to the surgery, the appointment should have been NO charge, but that didn't happen. The day before my appointment, I called the office to find out what the fee would be- I wanted to know if I could afford the visit. I was switched around to several different people; the first person I was handed over to asked what insurance I had. I said "none," and she said, "Oh, you're self-pay" and proceeded to direct my call to someone else who handled those inquiries. They have several employees to deal with every insurance policy. I got a voicemail for the right person; hours later, she called me back, admitting she did not know what the cost would be for the office visit. How is it that doctors' offices can't tell their patients what visits and procedures will even cost? Not to mention, usually if you don't have insurance you end up paying more-- because insurance companies will work out deals with the doctors' offices to lower the costs.
"How is it that doctors' offices can't tell their patients what visits and procedures will even cost?"
The doctor's imperative to extract maximum mammon out of you for services rendered requires that the cost be hidden from you until after the services are rendered.
- Harvard Business School
Darla as in 2000?
How long will it take people like John Nichols and the editors of the Nation to recognize the total scam operation that the big 0 and crew are? Can they not yet see that the Obama administration is in near lock step with the previous 8 years of Bush/Cheney/neocon actions and policies from endless wars to torture to feeding trillions to Wall Street criminals? And that in that framework, nothing which detracts in any real way from corporate profits and power will be enacted. In the cold logics of the ruling elites the demands of EMPIRE and FINANCE CAPITALISM ala Wall Street are first and foremost. Appropriations for wars and Wall Street bailouts pass in a flash with no real provisions for accountability or results. The needs of the citizens in even so basic a matter as healthcare are nearly irrelevant.
So when will John Nichols put his considerable talents to work for a new politics and split with trying to cajole a totally corrupted Democratic party into being anything other than the corporate shill and errand boy operation that it is today?
Perfectly said:
**the dangerous trend in the health-care debate at this point is toward schemes that would see the federal government providing money to low-income families so that they can buy care from high-income insurance companies.
That's nothing more than a giveaway to insurance companies. And it will not control costs.**
Congress, just think of it as blackmail. The more money you give them, the more money they will want. So stop telling us that it's going to trickle down or turn to gold for us. The bottom line is that if you give these blood sucking vampires more of our money, all it's going to do is make them stronger.
No bill passed would be better than a bad one.
"I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what [single-payer advocates are] talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see."
I just sent those words to www.whitehouse.gov, reminding the president what he told us during the campaign. I also telephoned the Whitehouse, and repeated those words to the volunteer who answered. I asked her if she knew who I just quoted. She did not. I reminded her that Barack Obama spoke those words during his campaign. I asked her to relay my comments to the President, and to ask him to aggressively pursue such a policy. It only took a few minutes to get to a switchboard volunteer. PLEASE so the same, or something similar. I know. A lot of good it will do.
Gov't won't do this unforced.
This needs a widespread refusal to pay premiums.
Just go watch "Mr Smith Goes to Washington" or some other such film and everything will be better.
Hollywood makes the worlds best pacifiers.
"the president argued that his reform vision would make insurance companies more responsible"
What is it about USans that causes them to swallow such lies, over and over again?
I have a solution. We authorize the CEOs of the 'health insurance' companies to steal anything they want from us, with two restrictions: no stealing twice from the same person in a calendar year, and no messing with the healthcare system. That way they get to satisfy their larcenous mania and to continue to live in the style to which we have accustomed them, and we are subjected to a more tolerable form of oppression.